Taking a week off.

 As promised, I'm taking the week off from the blog. See you back here next Sunday, November 19th.

Still out of pocket.

 I'm still elsewhere, larking about. Check back here for a new post next Sunday, April 30th. 

These moments of continuing vacationing blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

Out of pocket.

 As I mentioned last week, I'll be on the road through next Sunday. See you back here on April 30th.

These moments of vacationing blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Stay safe!

Still taking a break.

 As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I'm out this week. See you back here next Sunday, August 7th.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Taking a break.

 As I mentioned last week, I'm out this week and next. See you back here on Sunday, August 7th.

Through a lens blurrily.

So for starters, I wanted to let y'all know that I'm going to be taking a blogging break for the next couple of weeks. I'm having cataract surgery on my right eye on Wednesday and on my left eye next week, and I don't know whether I'll be able to see well enough to write a post either next Sunday or the Sunday after that. 

This picture approximates what I'm seeing out of my right eye (the blurriness, not the crosshatching or other imperfections) right now.

As you can imagine, I'm pretty anxious to get this done.

I anticipate I'll get back to blogging Sunday, August 7th. If things don't go as planned for some reason, I'll put up a short post on the 7th to let you know.

***

So to while away the time until I can see properly again, I've been watching A Discovery of Witches. The book was recommended to me many years ago, and the show has been recommended to me since then, so I figured I ought to give it a try.

I have so many problems with this show.

For starters, hereditary witches aren't a real thing in our world; witches are simply humans who practice magic. The magic they've been doing in the show so far (I'm about halfway through season two) is pretty well divorced from reality, too. I can maybe see using five candles (for the points of a pentagram?) instead of four (for the cardinal directions) when you cast a circle. But why is Aunt Em not inside the circle herself? Casting a circle puts up a magical barrier, creating a safe space in which to work. It makes no sense to cast a circle that leaves the magic wielder outside it, and therefore vulnerable to interference. Besides, magic almost never results in the sort of special effects that you see in these sorts of shows. Rarely do you get whizbang pyrotechnics. At best, a spell will nudge something or someone toward the outcome the magician desires. 

To be honest, these kinds of depictions of magic set up unrealistic expectations, both for would-be magicians and for regular folks. When the "powers" on display in TV shows are so outlandish, it makes it difficult for newbies to tell whether their spell worked -- and easy for doubters to dismiss magic entirely.

Second, how can there be only three categories of "creatures" in the world? Vampires, but no werewolves? Demons, but no ghosts? No chupacabra? No La Llorona? There are so many different types of magical beings in folklore, but this series has, for some reason, narrowed them to just three.

Leaving aside all that: The main character is Diana Bishop, a normal young woman who eventually twigs to the fact that she's a powerful witch whose natural magical ability has somehow been suppressed. Regardless of her powers (or lack of same), though, she's still just a babe who needs to be protected; her favorite vampire, Matthew, is constantly trying to "keep her safe," no matter how many times she tells him to knock it off and no matter how many times she proves that she can take care of herself. It's such a tired trope that I've been about to hurl something through my TV screen multiple times.

And yet, as you so rightly observe, I continue to watch the show. 

I guess I'm invested at this point. I want to see how it all turns out. So I guess on that level at least, A Discovery of Witches works. Just don't expect to learn anything about magic from watching it.

***

These moments of blurry blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed and boosted! See you back here in two weeks!

Taking another week off.

Yes, I just took a vacation. Yes, I'm taking another one this week. No, I'm not sorry.

See you next Sunday.

***

These moments of vacationing blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed! Get boosted!

Taking a week off.

 As I mentioned last week, I'm out gallivanting today - so no new blog post from me. See you next week!

***

These moments of bloggy gallivanting have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed!

A moving vacation.

 A reminder that I'm taking this week off because I'm moving into the condo. See you back here next week -- and in the meantime, don't forget about the summer reading challenge! It ends September 4th!

Taking the week off.

As I said last week, I don't have internet at the new place yet, so I'm skipping this week's post.

Have a blessed Lughnasa! See you back here next week!

Gone cruisin'.

Yup, I'm on vacation this week. Come on back next Sunday and I'll show you where I've been.

***
These moments of out-of-office blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. (Click my name to find some stuff to read while I'm away.)

A travel post.

You would think a person who has been gone for two weeks on a European river cruise would come home rested and refreshed. And you might be right, if the person hadn't come home with a sinus infection -- which, to be fair, probably originated far in advance of her departure date, but achieved its full flowering on the trip home.

Several days later, pumped full of antibiotics and a full day's worth of sleep, I'm nearly ready to rejoin the human race. But first: pictures!

Our adventure began in Amsterdam, where we boarded the Monarch Countess and cruised down the Rhine River to Basel, Switzerland. From there we went on to Luzern by bus. I've posted some of these photos on Facebook already, but a couple of them are new. Hopefully I won't bore you.

Copyright Lynne Cantwell 2019

Amsterdam has gotten rid of nearly all of the iconic windmills within the city limits -- but they've left this one so tourists can get a shot of Rembrandt's statue with it.

Copyright Lynne Cantwell 2019

One of our excursions was to Marksburg Castle, which has stood for 800 years overlooking Braubach, Germany. In olden times, the castle garden flourished partly because the privies were directly overhead. Thank goodness no one's sitting on those thrones these days.

Copyright Lynne Cantwell 2019

Also in Marksburg Castle. I'm sure the instrument on the left is a hurdy-gurdy and the wind instrument standing at the back is a recorder, but I'm stumped on the others. The one on the floor might be a vielle, and one of the two on the right bench could be a rebec. Anyone have a better guess?

Copyright Lynne Cantwell 2019

I really like the moodiness in this photo.

Copyright Lynne Cantwell 2019

It's not just Amsterdam -- a number of cities we visited had old towns crisscrossed with canals. This is in Colmar, Germany.

Copyright Lynne Cantwell 2019

This guy is an Alpine chough. We met at the top of Pilatus, near Luzern, Switzerland.

The trip wasn't all castles and churches -- we got some culture, too. I can heartily recommend a visit to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, if for no other reason than to see the his "Sunflowers."

On our last night in Luzern, we attended a concert with the Chamber Orchestra of Berlin and Vienna, with solo violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. They played an all-Mozart concert, which was very nice. But you can go here to for a clip of her in a new recording that might be more of a crowd-pleaser.

That's it. Back to real life tomorrow.

***
These moments of scenic blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Out of office.

Forgot to mention last week that I'm gone a-wandering this week. Sorry about that.

I fully intend to post next Sunday. See ya then. Have a fab week!

The #escapevelocity trip.

My Facebook friends may recognize the hashtag in the title of this post. Over the past several months, I've occasionally posted a status update having to do with my plans for retiring from the day job. (It's 544 days 'til I'm eligible, for those of you following along at home, although it's more likely I'll stick it out for 752 more days.) Hence, #escapevelocity.

Of course, I'll be moving to Colorado. But where? The state is so big and so breathtaking that I knew I'd have to simply put my boots on the ground, so to speak, in a number of places and see which one felt like home. So a couple of weeks ago, I set off on a clandestine trip to spend a few days in a several cities to see where I felt most comfortable. 

The candidates: Longmont, north of Denver; and Buena Vista and Salida, two towns in the "banana belt" of Colorado, which means they're up in the mountains but thanks to a geographical quirk, they don't get a lot of snow. (I know, I know, I'm a wuss. But it's been decades since I lived anywhere that got a lot of snow in the winter, and while I'm sure I could adjust again, why not make it easy?) I briefly visited all three locales last year -- I had lunch with a friend in Longmont and drove through Buena Vista, and while I stayed overnight in Salida, I didn't like the place I'd rented and thought the town deserved another chance.

Also last year, I drove through the tiny village of Twin Lakes, about which more later.

Longmont is a small city of about 93,000 people. It has all the common comforts you typically find in an urban area -- public transit, restaurants, movie theaters, Target, a lovely little yarn shop -- but it's nowhere near as crowded as, say, DC. Plus the city has a state-designated Creative District. It even has its own symphony orchestra. I stayed at the Thompson House Inn and loved it. I could totally see myself settling in Longmont.

Copyright 2018 Lynne Cantwell

Salida has maybe 6,000 people. This time, I stayed at the Palace Hotel, a boutique hotel in the historic district, which was fun. My suite was lovely and a fellow in a chef's toque delivered my continental breakfast every morning. Salida also has a state-designated Creative District. And it sits on the Arkansas River, which is well-known in whitewater rafting and kayaking, plus it's picturesque. 

However, the town is lacking in a lot of things that would make day-to-day life easier.

Buena Vista is about a half-hour north of Salida. It's even smaller -- maybe 3,000 -- and it also sits on the Arkansas River. Tourism is this little town's bread and butter; it's pretty much the gateway to the Browns Canyon National Monument, which is all about whitewater. You can't beat the scenery: besides the river, you have a bunch of hot springs nearby, and the snowcapped Collegiate Peaks (which include Mt. Harvard, Mt. Yale, and Mt. Princeton) to the west. And the people were friendly and welcoming. But I'm not a rafting person. And alas, if a town of 6,000 didn't have enough amenities for me, you can imagine how I would feel about having to drive an hour and a half from Buena Vista to get to Target. (Walmart is much closer -- there's one in Salida -- but to be honest, being in a Walmart makes my teeth itch.)

So it didn't take long to exhaust the stuff in Buena Vista that I'd come to see. As a free afternoon stretched before me, a little voice in my head said, "Let's drive up to Twin Lakes." So I got in the rental car and headed north.

Twin Lakes is a bend in the road on the eastern downslope from Independence Pass. It has maybe 200 people. And it is not in the banana belt -- it averages 116 inches of snow every winter. But it's got the lakes and the mountains. When I drove through last year, I thought to myself, "This is pretty."

This year, I got out of the car, toured the tiny historical area, walked a little way up a trail, surveyed the landscape, and...well. That's the place. Totally impractical, hell and gone from everything, and my spiritual home.

And this is a bad picture.
Copyright 2018 Lynne Cantwell

There are a bunch of reasons why I wouldn't want to settle there permanently. For one thing, the county won't let you put just a tiny house on a piece of property, let alone live in it full time. So I'm good with just visiting for now. And anyway, I've got 752 days to sort it all out.

***

All this talk of whitewater rafting got me thinking, though. While I was on vacation, I sketched out an idea for a new series. River spirits figure heavily. I'll let you know if anything comes of it.

***

I was hoping I'd be able to tell you this week that Mom's House was available in paperback, but I've been slacking since I came home and only got around to uploading the manuscript to CreateSpace today. I'm sure I'll have more news next week.

***

These moments of bloggy boots on the ground have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Gone walkabout.

As I promised last week, I have gone away. Check this space again next Sunday.

In the meantime, you could be reading your very own copy of Mom's House. Just sayin'.

Regardless, I hope you have a great week!

***
These moments of bloggish rest have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Gone hiking.

As I mentioned last week, hearth/myth is taking this week off. See you back here next week -- same bat time, same bat channel. (Oooh -- was that a Halloween reference? Come back next week and find out!)

What I did on my summer vacation.

I was sure I'd hung out the "On Vacation" sign here before I left for the airport... Sorry. I guess that was one of the things that slipped through the cracks.

Clearly I needed this break. A lot of things have been slipping through the cracks lately. One of them is editing Maggie on the Cusp, which -- given my publishing schedule over the past few years -- ought to be for sale already. Never fear; I'm going to dive in this week, I swear.

So anyway, I've been gone to Colorado for about a week and a half. Alert hearth/myth readers know that I've been there many times over the years. For this trip, I promised myself that I would do a road trip to take in a bunch of sites I'd never seen in person before. So even though I've been to Denver about a gazillion times, this time I rented a carriage house in the Congress Park neighborhood for a couple of nights. While I was there, I paid a visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens, both before I'd never been there before and because they're featuring an exhibit of Alexander Calder's works this summer. I'm a big fan of Calder. This one in particular caught my eye. The exhibit brochure called it vaguely man/machine-shaped. But come on -- it's a crow. Or maybe a Raven.

And even though I've driven west on I-70 before, I'd never driven up Mount Evans -- one of two 14,000-foot-plus mountains in Colorado whose summits are reachable by car. (The other one is Pikes Peak, near Colorado Springs.) So I did that. It was cold and windy (46 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill of 36) at the top, so I didn't stay long. But I wish I could have bought a t-shirt that said, "I survived the Mt. Evans Highway." Not only was the road narrow, but it had no shoulders and no guardrails. Aieee...

I drove from there to Glenwood Springs because I'd never been in a vapor cave before. It's kind of like a steam room on steroids.

I drove from there to Aspen -- or as the tourist brochures call it, "glamorous Aspen," although somehow I managed to circumvent all the glamor. First, I took a city bus up to Maroon Bells because I'd seen a million photos of the two mountains but had never been there. They're just as beautiful in person, as you can see.

In downtown Aspen, I found a bookstore and bought a book to read (Anne Hillerman's Song of the Lion, if you must know), then found the city library and spent an hour getting into the story -- as well as out of the heat.

I also stopped at the John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen. Denver lived in Aspen, and after he died, the city set aside a few acres on the banks of the Roaring Fork River downtown for a memorial. One section features a little waterfall and pond surrounded by trees and wildflowers, and another is a small amphitheater featuring more flowers, as well as boulders on which lyrics to several of his songs are engraved. It could have been really tacky, but I thought it was tastefully done.

One boulder featured the lyrics to "Rocky Mountain High," of course. This one has the lyrics to "The Eagle and the Hawk," which is an excellent one to sing at the top of your lungs when you need to declare yourself large and in charge. (Don't ask me how I know.) Anyway, it's a great song, even though it was never a hit, and I was glad to see it included in the park.

I had never made the drive over Independence Pass (a famously twisty road east of Aspen) before, so I did that next. It was a piece of cake compared to the Mt. Evans Highway. From there, I stopped in Leadville, which was a big deal during the silver rush in the mid-1800s, and toured the Tabor Opera House. Then I stayed for a couple of days near Nathrop, in a cabin with a little, private pool fed by a hot spring. That was very relaxing.

I also made a day trip to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, again because I've seen many photos but had never been. And I spent a day in Salida, which has a cute downtown that's classified as a Creative District by the state of Colorado.

The only problem with this trip is that I kept hearing about a bunch of other places in Colorado that I also should have visited. I guess I'll just have to go back.

***
These moments of vacationing blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Headin' for the hills.

As I said last week, hearth/myth is taking a break today. Go read a book! Preferably one of mine, of course. But if you're all caught up on my work, head over to Rursday Reads -- you're sure to find a book (or several!) there that you will enjoy.

See you back here on Sunday, August 16th, for a special celebration.

***

These moments of bloggy cabin fever have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

A brief hearth/myth hiatus.

Apologies for the lack of notice, guys. A lot was going on last weekend, and so I forgot to tell you that I would be taking this week off. As you read this, I'm in New Mexico for what is likely to be the final Kevinswatch.com Elohimfest, given that Stephen R. Donaldson published the final book in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever last fall.

However, you may rest assured that I will be back here next Sunday as usual, and then will be able to give you a full report on the 'Fest.

So until June 29th, happy reading!

***
This brief moment of vacationing blogginess has been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

The only thing inevitable is change.

I just finished another marathon, but this one was for a different sort of book: It's a scrapbook of my trip to Europe last year.  I've been meaning to get to it for months, but the Pipe Woman Chronicles kind of got in the way.  But I knew I had to do it soon, so I could start on the scrapbook for the Alaska trip before I start to forget details the way I have for the Europe trip.  (The journaling part of this scrapbook would have been a lot richer if I'd done it sooner.)

Scrapbooking is an obsession with some people; they take pictures of every milestone of their lives or their kids' lives, and put them in a scrapbook by month, date, and event and/or holiday.  I never had it that bad.  When I got into it, I promised myself that I would only do scrapbooks for my vacation pictures -- and I have stuck to that (except for one catchall book for my obsession with Colorado).

But when I started working on this latest book, I realized that I might as well start using up all the precut papers and stickers and things that I'd been hoarding for "another scrapbook someday," because I only have one more vacation destination on my bucket list.  So after the Alaska book is done, I plan to do only one more scrapbook.  That's not to say that I'll never do another one, ever; I certainly don't plan to stop going on vacations, and I may someday take another trip that requires memorializing in scrapbook format.

But making a scrapbook -- at least a dead-tree, cut-up-and-mat-actual-photos scrapbook -- is time-consuming.  And it needs a lot of working room.  This weekend, my dining room table was covered with packs of colored papers, a small cutting mat and templates, my little paper cutter, markers, stickers (alphabet and other), paper punches, scissors, pens for journaling, and my notes. (Yes, I outline my scrapbooks, too.) I had so much crap spread out on the table that I had to put the photos on the kitchen counter (in stacks, sorted by city).  It's not the sort of thing you can easily pack away and haul out again next time, all neatly organized. Hence, the weekend marathon.

And people take so many pictures now.  It's easy with a digital camera -- you just click away and dump the duds immediately.  My friend and I took upwards of 600 photos in Europe.  Alaska won't be as bad; I only have 240 pictures. Heh -- only 240 pictures. In the old days, I would have shot only two or three 36-exposure rolls, and probably a quarter to a third of them would have been unusable, which I wouldn't know 'til I got the photos back from the drug store a week later.  It's a lot easier to put together a scrapbook from 60 pictures than it is from 600, let me tell you.

An acquaintance who has a home-based business selling scrapbooking supplies recently sent out an e-mail that talked about this.  She says a lot of people have just given up on making scrapbooks -- their pictures are on multiple devices and it's just too hard to organize them.  And she's talking about digital scrapbooks, too, not just the dead-tree ones I keep making because I have all this paper to use up.

It reminded me a little of a post on Laurie Boris's blog this week, in which she talked about the tools she used as a beginning graphic artist and how they're all obsolete now that computer graphics are the thing.  I commented that radio is the same way for me -- I got out of the business just as digital editing was coming in, and I would have to retrain if I wanted to go back into it. Not only are my grease-pencil-and-razor-blade skills rusty, they're obsolete.

Now even my hobbies are becoming obsolete.  Good thing my bucket list is getting shorter.

***
These moments of bloggy musing are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.